A Secure Blockchain-based Authentication and Key Agreement Protocol for 5G Roaming

The fifth generation (5G) is now widely used to access network services due to the emergence of the Internet of Things (IoT) and mobile devices. To secure 5G communication, the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) organization created the 5G-Authentication and Key Agreement (AKA) protocol. Security evaluations have found a number of problems in the 5G-AKA, including a violation of perfect forward secrecy, a traceability attack, and denial of service (DoS) attacks. To address the shortcomings of 5G-AKA, several enhanced versions have been developed. However, it has been shown that either these versions are expensive or do not address security issues. Additionally, less effort is put into providing security when a user utilizes roaming mobile services while a malicious Serving Network (SN) is present. This paper introduces an authentication mechanism to handle the above issues. In addition to this, a handover mechanism is also designed for re-connection. The authentication and handover phase security assessment uses the mathematical model Real-Or-Random (ROR), AVISPA, and Scyther tool. Furthermore, the performance comparison depicts that the authentication and handover phase is more efficient than existing protocols. An assessment of the smart contract function’s cost and effectiveness is also provided.